The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath - 1274 Words

In the novel The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath the prime character, Esther Greenwood, struggles to handle life in her own skin. She feels as though she is trapped in a glass bell jar with no escape because of her incapability to comprehend herself. For example, in chapter one Plath states, â€Å"‘My name s Elly Higginbottom,’ I said. ‘I come from Chicago.’ After that I felt safer. I didn t want anything I said or did that night to be associated with me and my real name and coming from Boston† (Plath 11). In this quote, Esther alters her life story demonstrating her lost sight of her true identity. In addition, Greenwood talks about losing control over her life as a stormy cloud rolls in, shadowing her every move. To further explain, Greenwood voices, â€Å"Only I wasn t steering anything, not even myself. I just bumped from my hotel to work and to parties and from parties to my hotel and back to work like a numb trolleybus. I guess I should have been exci ted the way most of the other girls were, but I couldn t get myself to react. (I felt very still and very empty, the way the eye of a tornado must feel, moving dully along in the middle of the surrounding hullabaloo.)† (Plath 2-3). This citation exemplifies Greenwood’s inability to grasp her life through her boredom with traditionally enjoyable activities. Greenwood has difficulty steering her life in any direction because of she fails to discover her inner self. In addition to the conflict with identity in The Bell Jar, the novel,Show MoreRelatedThe Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath1318 Words   |  6 Pageswe live. Many authors who seek this understanding fall short of their expectations and find themselves questioning life to an even greater extent than they had prior to their endeavors. One example of this would be author and poet Sylvia Plath, whose novel The Bell Jar parallels the tragic events that occurred throughout her own life. This coming-of-age story follows the life of Esther, a very bright and introverted student from Boston. She spends a month in New York City as a contest-winning juniorRead MoreThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath1211 Words   |  5 PagesOn January 14th of 1963, Sylvia Plath had finally completed The Bell Jar after approximately two years of writing. This novel could have been considered a partial autobiography, because the main character Esther Greenwood eerily represents Sylvia Plath. There are a number of references to Plath’s real life throughout the book, too many for it to be considered a mere coincidence. Within the story, Esther Greenwood considers and attempts suicide quite frequently. Could this novel have been foreshadowingRead MoreThe Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath Essay1438 Words   |  6 Pagesthe novel been translated into nearly a dozen different languages, but it is also the only novel under the American writer and poet Sylvia Plath. She wrote this novel to resemble her life whenever she was dealing with mental illness. It was published in 1967 and was not published in the United States until 1971. After the first publication in the United Kingdom, Plath committed suicide in a very tragic way.   Even though this novel can be viewed as â€Å"dark†, many english classes read this world wideRead MoreThe Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath1099 Words   |  5 PagesThe Bell Jar by: Sylvia Plath Depression is a serious topic throughout the world, especially in America. Depression can result in someone feeling completely alone. There is no direct cause for depression in adolescents, but it can be brought on by the maturing process, stress from failure in some sort, a traumatic or disturbing event such as death, or even a break up. Sure, everyone has an off day here and there, where they feel like they shouldn’t even bother getting out bed in the morning, butRead MoreThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath1211 Words   |  5 PagesSylvia Plath Research Paper Title The Bell Jar place[s] [the] turbulent months[of an adolescent’s life] in[to] mature perspective (Hall, 30). In The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath uses parallelism, stream of consciousness, the motif of renewal and rebirth, symbolism of the boundary-driven entrapped mentally ill, and auto-biographical details to epitomize the mental downfall of protagonist, Esther Greenwood. Plath also explores the idea of how grave these timeless and poignant issues can affect a fragileRead More The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath1820 Words   |  7 PagesIdentity is fragile and is a characteristic that every person must discover without hiding behind inexperience’s and excluding themselves from the outside world of reality or else their own personal bell jar will suffocate them alive. The Bell Jar, a semi-autobiographical novel written by Sylvia Plath portrays how a young woman with too many identities and unrealistic expectations overwhelms herself to the point that she contemplates and attempts su icide multiple times. Esther Greenwood, a young collegeRead MoreThe Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath942 Words   |  4 Pagesdevelopment of her relationship with many characters in the novel, The Bell Jar. Esther is mentally and emotionally different than a majority of the people in her community. As a result of this state, she often has difficulty taking criticism to heart. Her depression continues to build throughout the novel as she remains in the asylum. It does not help that she has no aid from her loved ones. In the novel, The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath utilizes the relationships that Esther shares with Buddy Willard MrsRead MoreThe Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath1554 Words   |  6 Pagestrials and triumphs in their personal life, their relationships with others and their surroundings. In the Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath explores the role of women in society in 1950s New York City through her relationships and interactions. Esther Greenwood is the major character and is therefore central to the no vel. The book is considered to be a â€Å"roman a` clef† portraying the painful summer of Sylvia Plath’s psychotic breakdown in 1953, and contains â€Å"thinly disguised portraits of her family and friends†Read MoreThe Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath1940 Words   |  8 PagesAccording to the Merriam Webster dictionary, the definition of the word â€Å"bell jar† is, â€Å"a bell-shaped usually glass vessel designed to contain objects or preserve gases and or a vacuum†. Sylvia Plath’s title, The Bell Jar, symbolically represents her feeling towards the seclusion and inferiority women endured trapped by societes glass vessel during the 1950’s. The Bell Jar, follows the life of Esther Greenwood, the protagonist and narrator of the story, during her desperate attempt to become a womanRead MoreThe Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath851 Words   |  4 Pages The bell Jar by Sylvia Plath is a bildungsroman fictional novel, and documents a first person account of Esther Greenwood’s struggle with depression from her late teens to early twenty’s. During Esther’s final path of destruction, her encounter with Marco leads her to one of many revelations about societies expectations for women and this reality along with many other factors sends Esther to her near demise. Before Esther’s encounter with Marco she was experiencing life in New York